Unconventional Warfare: Strategies and Tactics for Modern Battlefields

By Fouad Sabry

What is Unconventional Warfare

Unconventional warfare (UW) is broadly defined as "military and quasi-military operations other than conventional warfare" and may use covert forces or actions such as subversion, sabotage, espionage, biowarfare, sanctions, propaganda or guerrilla warfare. This is typically done to avoid escalation into conventional warfare as well as international conventions.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Unconventional warfare

Chapter 2: Guerrilla warfare

Chapter 3: Asymmetric warfare

Chapter 4: Low-intensity conflict

Chapter 5: Insurgency

Chapter 6: Jungle warfare

Chapter 7: Fourth-generation warfare

Chapter 8: Irregular military

Chapter 9: Modern warfare

Chapter 10: Counterinsurgency

(II) Answering the public top questions about unconventional warfare.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Unconventional Warfare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: May 27, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Unconventional warfare

Military and quasi-military actions other than conventional warfare is a general definition of unconventional warfare (UW).

In addition to the previous definition of non-conventional warfare, unconventional warfare has also been defined as:

War by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, and assassins; war by ambush instead of combat; war by infiltration instead of aggression; seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him; are some other forms of warfare that are new in their intensity but ancient in their origin. It exploits discontent.

Unconventional warfare aims to make the enemy's military prowess unimportant by psychologically attacking the civilian populace in an effort to win over support. It solely targets military and political targets for this purpose. Instead of significantly weakening the enemy's fighting capacity, limited conventional warfare methods might be utilized unconventionally to demonstrate might and force. Other weaponry that expressly target the military can be utilized, in addition to the surgical application of conventional weapons, include airstrikes, nuclear weapons, incendiary devices, or other such weapons.

Deep behind enemy lines, Special Forces are deployed in an innovative way to train, arm, and provide advice to residents who disagree with their government. Additionally, they can support local resistance fighters while disseminating subversion and propaganda in order to eventually force a hostile government to submit. To lower the morale of government forces, tactics are used that concentrate on eliminating military targets while minimizing harm to civilian infrastructure and obstructing military resupply.

Unconventional warfare is defined by the US Department of Defense as operations carried out by or in conjunction with an underground, auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a prohibited area in order to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power.

The philosophy of conventional warfare and the need to hide the authorship of hostile state actions were fundamentally altered with the advent of the Atomic Age. Asymmetrical or unconventional warfare as well as terrorism had arrived. referred to as the next sort of war—technological war, machine war, or atomic war by Edward Fitzpatrick.

However, using soft power techniques to target civilians rather than military troops had already started earlier, especially as a tactic for use against Republics. and changed to become other doctrines.

These models have been expanded to include risk assessment in the world of corporate security and defense contracting, where there is an overlap. The La Follette Committee recorded one of the first uses of unconventional warfare methods against civilians.

{End Chapter 1}

Chapter 2: Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a type of irregular warfare wherein small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary members, armed civilians, or irregulars, employ military techniques like ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility to battle a more powerful and immobile traditional military.

Although the phrase guerrilla warfare was first used in relation to the Peninsular War in the 19th century, the tactical strategies have been in use for a very long time. Sun Tzu suggested the employment of guerrilla-style tactics in The Art of War in the sixth century BC. Many guerilla warfare techniques are assigned to the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who developed what is now known as the Fabian strategy. Throughout history, guerrilla warfare has been employed by a variety of groups. It is notably connected to revolutionary movements and public resistance to occupying or encroaching armies.

Due to often weaker weapons or forces, guerrilla tactics emphasize avoiding direct clashes with enemy armies in favor of small-scale battles intended to wear down foes and force them to withdraw. Guerrilla techniques are therefore typically only employed for defense. Organized guerrilla groups frequently rely on funding from the local populace or from supporters abroad who share their objectives.

The Spanish word for guerrilla is guerra, which is short for war.; hence, ‘little war’.

During the Peninsular War in the early 19th century, the phrase gained popularity, when, after their regular armies were routed, The guerilla tactic was used by the Spanish and Portuguese people to effectively revolt against the Napoleonic forces and thwart a much stronger army.

Using proper Spanish, a person who is a member of a guerrilla unit is a guerrillero ([geriˈʎeɾo]) if male, or a guerrillera ([geriˈʎeɾa]) if female.

As early as 1809, the term guerrilla was used in English to refer to both individual warriors (e.g., The town was taken by the guerrillas) as well as groups or bands of such fighters. The term guerrilla still refers to a certain kind of warfare in the majority of languages. The diminutive evokes the disparities between the guerrilla army and the formal, professional army of the state in terms of size, breadth, and composition.

Tribal fighters in the prehistoric era probably used guerrilla strategies to combat rival tribes. Contrarily, the first signs of conventional combat did not appear in Egypt and Mesopotamia until 3100 BC. One of the first to advocate the use of guerilla warfare was the Chinese military and strategist Sun Tzu, who did so in his work The Art of War (6th century BC).

Guerrilla warfare was utilized against the Normans during their many invasions into Wales. The Normans were unfamiliar with the area's mountains, so the Welsh used them to launch surprise attacks.

Ideologies like nationalism, liberalism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism have all contributed significantly to molding insurgencies and guerrilla warfare since the Enlightenment.

Between 1790 and 1805, Kerala Varma (also known as Pazhassi Raja) waged guerrilla warfare in India against the British East India Company. In 1809, Arthur Wellesley translated the Spanish word guerrilla into English, The Moroccan military leader Abd el-Krim (c. 1883 – 1963) and his father unified the Moroccan tribes under their control and took up arms against the Spanish and French occupiers during the Rif War in 1920.

first time ever in history, Tunnel warfare was combined with contemporary guerrilla techniques, It severely wounded both of the colonial armies in Morocco.

engaged British soldiers in significant combat, often for 10 to 30 minutes.

Barry's flying columns are best known for their role in the Kilmichael Ambush in November 1920 and the Crossbarry Ambush in March 1921, both of which resulted in significant casualties for the opposing forces.

A small group of Algerian militants launched the 1954 Algerian Revolution. The insurgents fought the French for more than eight years with simple weapons. This still serves as a model for contemporary forms of asymmetric warfare, terrorism, torture, and insurgency and counterinsurgency.

The Mukti Bahini (Bengali: মুক্তিবাহিনী, literally means freedom fighters, Liberation Army, etc.), additionally known as Bangladesh Forces, was the Bangladeshi military's guerilla resistance movement, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, which turned East Pakistan into Bangladesh in 1971, paramilitaries and civilians.

Mukti Fauj, a previous name, was also employed.

Asymmetric warfare, or struggle between adversaries of different strength levels, includes guerrilla warfare. Guerrillas, if successful, wear down their adversary through attrition, eventually forcing them to retreat.

Guerrillas typically avoid major units and formations of enemy soldiers and instead hunt down and target smaller pockets of enemy personnel and supplies to progressively weaken the opposition while minimizing their own casualties. The guerilla favors mobility, stealth, and surprise; it forms tiny units and uses difficult-to-access terrain to its advantage. For instance, Mao Zedong described fundamental guerrilla strategies as follows at the start of the Chinese Civil War:

When the adversary approaches, we flee; when they camp, we stalk; when they tire, we attack; and when they flee, we pursue.

Guerrilla organizations may also use improvised explosive devices to destroy infrastructure in addition to more conventional combat tactics. They frequently embed themselves within it (using the populace as a human shield), rely on logistical and political support from the local population and foreign benefactors, and many guerrilla groups are skilled at persuading the public through propaganda and use of force. All citizens could start to look like potential guerilla supporters to the opposing army. Today's guerrilla forces frequently use kids as fighters, scouts, porters, spies, informants, and in other capacities.

Theoretical writings on guerilla warfare served as inspiration for the growth of guerrilla warfare in the 20th century, starting with the Manual de Guerra de Guerrillas by Matías Ramón Mella written in the 19th century and, more recently, On Guerrilla Warfare by Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare under Che Guevara, and the same-titled text by Lenin, all published following the effective revolutions they carried out in China, Russia and Cuba, respectively.

These writings described the guerilla warfare strategy as, according to the text of Che Guevara, being employed by the side that has the backing of the majority but has a considerably lower number of weapons for use in defense against oppression.

The guerilla warrior fights for what reasons? We must accept the unavoidable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms in response to the angry outcry of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to alter the social structure that keeps all of his unarmed brothers in humiliation and misery.

— Che Guevara

Around 1960, In his book Guerrilla Warfare, the Marxist revolutionary Che